HAMILTON – Although many people wear sandals in the summer, local woman Nancy Garland chooses to do so not out of comfort, but so that she can make others feel bad about staring at her deformed right foot.
“God cursed me with this weird toe.” Said Garland. “And I’m determined to make others suffer with me.”
The digit, afflicted by a treatable fungal infection that Garland has chosen to ignore, is often the subject of guilty double-takes: glances that Garland says she takes “bitter joy” in calling attention to.
“I’ll be like, ‘What are you looking at?’, but we’ll both know what they were looking at.” Said Garland. “It makes ‘em feel real bad.”
Recipients of Garland’s version of justice say that the experience left them feeling like “monsters”.
“Something looked out of place, so I took a second glance.” Said local woman Molly Stapleton. “After 20 minutes of crying and apologizing, I realized that I had become exactly the kind of girl that always made fun of me in high school.”
“I hate myself.” Stapleton added.
Garland, who maintains that she “feeds off of” such encounters, goes out of her way to draw attention to the toe. Among other tactics, she often goes so far as to put her bare feet on neighbouring bus seats, ‘accidentally’ brush people’s luggage and pant legs with the toe, or even lunge at people’s faces with her left foot, all so that she can then shame them for recoiling.
“The only deformity here is your social intolerance!” Garland screamed at a nearby five-year old. “You’re the one with something wrong with you.”
At press time, Garland could not be reached for comment, as she was mesmerized by another commuter’s immense goiter.
